Developer : Shared Memory
Genres : 2D Platformer
Puzzle Games
Metroid-vania
Graphics : Pixel Art
Other Tags : Tile-based Backgrounds
Trophies : truetrophies.comCOMPLETED
Animal Well is a beautiful and mysterious puzzle-based Metroid-vania 2D platformer. I'm fascinated by the spooky animal world, and love how dense the environments are with unique mechanics and secrets. And it's incredibly cool that I'm discovering the game mechanics just by fiddling around with the items.
Image source: animalwell.net
Passwords / Cheat Codes
Current status
- I'm missing the candle in the middle of the 9 candles (I also don't have a match),
- I have nailed the Kangaroo once with a firecracker and got a fragment thing, and
- I played the Secret Rabbit code in front of the TV, but did no other rabbit-related things.
Facts
The game was developed by a single person, Billy Basso, over a 7 year period. It uses a custom engine developed for the game.
When you get killed, you respawn at the last telephone, but your puzzle progress doesn't revert.
The graphics of this game is tile-based, according to the 2022 developer interview in gamedeveloper.com.
The cat cages react to the flute.
I found a code in a room full of ghost mouse heads:
↘️⬅️
↗️↘️
➡️You can turn into Fez Guy by pressing ↑↑↑.
Secret Rabbit code: ↗ ↖ ↙ ↘ ⬆ ⬅ ⬇ ➡
Analysis
I think the big space donut is a representation of the world - it seems that both the x- and y-axis of the map wraps around, corresponding to the topology of a donut.
